There are three ways to lay a trap. The first is to make it so deceptive, the opponent never sees it coming. The second is to make it so tempting, they don’t care that it’s a trap. The third, of course, is to do both.

  – Reyla, the Ninth Hero

  APEXILLOS

  “You do realize how risky this is, right? If you want my advice, we scrub the attempt and back out to a safe system, do something else, then come back after they’ve let down their guard.”

  Naven’s advice made a lot of sense, in a vacuum. Apex could see the wisdom in it, but he was too busy making preparations to debate the matter to the military man. If he didn’t like it, he could leave the ship.

  Fortunately for Apex, Sallus had the answers anyway.

  “That’s even worse. We’ve already used too much time in this system – they’ve probably had some time to prepare now.” The elf sighed heavily. “If we retreat, we’ll give them more time. If we abort, then other forces will have time to gear up against Apexillos. Also, the secrecy is the only reason this source is so lightly defended. Once the bigger players are aware that there’s a real risk to their supply of kaleidoscope, they’ll find an excuse to put in much more military might, and we aren’t ready for that.”

  It was an annoyance, listening to the two debate. Apex had so much to do to prepare for this, and the chatter kept coming. He continued carefully transferring the remaining quintessence in his fuel tanks to concentrate it in the newer ones. Less than half left… he couldn’t spare too much for his plan, but he couldn’t use a tiny amount either.

  “Or you’re wrong and they aren’t using it for their elite soldiers.”

  Despite the explanation, Naven continued to press. Apex didn’t actually mind this. Putting pressure on plans would help them survive. He trusted Sallus knew what she was doing here, but pushing back against her would keep her from getting complacent. She should have realized Gristlemaw would know where they were jumping next. They could have avoided this entire situation if she’d changed it up and jumped to the third system instead of the second on her route.

  Not that Apex had thought to do that either. Even after his many attempts to tell himself he’d never underestimate Lesser Folk again, he kept doing so.

  Not this time.

  “The current supplier likely doesn’t want too much oversight. It’s a typical issue of people wanting to hoard their power as much as possible. Ironically, even if we fail here, we’ll ruin their day because it will give the Coalition an excuse to force their way in.”

  Sallus explained it all patiently to their semi-willing co-conspirator, while Apex finished his preparations. He double-checked that Gertrude was finished with the scrap he’d torn from the frigate, and found that she was already headed towards one of the airlocks.

  “I’m about to start,” Apex warned the two arguing on the bridge. “If you have any actual reasons for me to hold off on doing this, say them now, but be aware that every minute our window grows smaller.”

  That shut both of them up. Neither wanted to put this off any longer, even if it made both nervous. As Naven had said, it was going to get pretty messy and the risk was high something would go wrong. Apex had assured both that the key point of his plan would work…

  Once.

  This was not the sort of trick one would ever get to work twice.

  Despite his warning, Apex still had to wait a few minutes for Gertrude to go through pressurization and into the ship proper. This next part would require everyone to be strapped in, and he’d already announced it to the rest of the crew, who were all ready. It gave him time to brace himself for what was coming next.

  He didn’t mention this to the others, but when damage went too deep, it did register as pain. This was going to hurt.

  “Detonation in three seconds.”

  Apex didn’t count down. He just gave the number, waited the three seconds… and triggered the charges that had been planted.

  Alarms flashed in his vision as the spike of pain stabbed into his side. He cut the thrusters and immediately dropped stealth, venting all his heat at once.

  The explosion tore off some of his armor plating, blowing it outward away from the hull beneath. Quintessence sprayed outward in a purplish jet, surrounded by the rainbow motes as its concentrated essence destabilized and broke down into raw mana.

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  Apex was sent into a tumble, one he did not bother to correct. He powered down everything he could, including the artificial gravity this time. Life support only, and minimal lighting, that is all he left on as a good tenth of his capacity leaked out into space. Nearly seven tons of fuel was spewing out into the void, leaving a very large mana signature to go along with the heat bloom he’d just released.

  He’d just announced his presence to the entire system, with that. The Enforcers were already firing up their thrusters and on their way toward him, although it would be a few hours before they could even reliably fire missiles, and they likely didn’t want to just destroy him.

  Since Gristlemaw also wanted Apex, the pirate couldn’t just linger at the edge of the system any more. He’d been in a wary standoff with the Enforcers, but now he needed to move in order to get to his prey before they did. Apex was certain that the old pirate knew this was a trap. The Enforcers might not, but Gristlemaw was far too cunning to fail to catch the convenient timing and positioning.

  Sallus suited up and did some minor internal repairs from the explosion as the rest of the crew… waited. They couldn’t see what was happening, but Apex could on his still-active sensors. Just as expected, Gristlemaw had taken the bait and was coming in fast. Some of the Enforcers had ships that could pull ten or fifteen G’s acceleration, but the pirate had been significantly closer and gotten an earlier start. The Enforcers would have to make a call on if they wanted to contest the pirate over the apparently-disabled ship.

  After forty minutes, the Enforcers began to decelerate, pointing themselves back toward the planet they were supposed to be defending. That was unsurprising as well. It was unlikely that any of them out here had the specifications of a Draconis vessel handy, but Gristlemaw almost certainly did. The pirate would know that they only had those two small fuel tanks as standard.

  He might suspect Apex had more, but had no way of knowing how much more capacity the dragon actually possessed. If Apex read the pirate correctly – or, more precisely, if Pan had done so – he would expect the dragon to have a larger capacity. The problem had been that he couldn’t be certain, and if he were wrong it meant he’d be handing over a helpless target to the Enforcers. The pirate had to intervene, trap or not.

  As the Rattling Saber neared, Apex released the hunk of scrap he’d kept from the frigate. It drifted away lazily, spinning thanks to the rotational energy that had been put into it from the dragon’s injury.

  Good.

  They all knew Gristlemaw wanted them intact. He’d get very close before risking another shot. If, for some reason, they were all wrong…

  The massive cruiser-sized ship decelerated as expected, and once within missile range still did not fire. The slow approach kept weapons trained on Apex, and he felt the uncomfortable crawling sensation of MADAR sweeping over his body. The tickle was not pleasant, but he checked himself from reacting. His crew remained silent, wisely leaving this next part to him.

  Phase three had begun.

  As Gristlemaw’s aging yet powerful ship came closer, it entered the smaller bubble that was too close for missiles and torpedoes to arm themselves. Firing arcs became harder to maneuver at this range, and using those explosive projectiles would give as much risk to the one firing as the target.

  Naturally, Sallus knew enough about them to disable that arming safety. As the Rattling Saber moved in close enough to loom in Apex’s vision, he activated the remote signal she’d hooked up. Nothing so precise as remote control, just a simple trigger that blew apart the launch frame mounted on one side of the floating debris that he’d released.

  He saw immediately that the torpedo accelerating toward the ship would, at best, make a glancing blow. Even a direct hit only stood a chance of crippling the ship enough to make a difference, and a near-hit would only annoy the larger, more armored craft. It was not a new trap, but it was dangerous and imprecise enough to be rarely used, according to Naven. Apex had bungled it, though. The torpedo would never provide enough of an edge for him to get in close and finish the job with his claws and plasma lance.

  Gristlemaw had to know that. He also had to know this was a crude trap, and he knew Sallus was a skilled engineer. He didn’t take any chances, and one of the point defense turrets scattered a few bolts of mana toward the incoming warhead, connecting with a blaze of purple to obliterate the inconsequential threat.

  Just as Apex had predicted.

  The torpedo exploded, sending shrapnel zipping by and a diffusing cloud of quintessence fanning outward. A few plinks against his armor annoyed Apex moments later, but they were so spread out that they did nothing of note. The heavy plating of the Rattling Saber likewise barely took a scratch.

  By all appearances, their last-ditch gamble had failed.

  Even so, Gristlemaw barely nudged his ship closer, easing in with the caution born from a century or more raiding the star lanes. The grappling arm only emerged after he was well within the range where detonating a warhead would be dangerous to Apex.

  The smooth motion of that arm unfolding and reaching toward him confirmed what Apex had suspected. The last piece of the puzzle required what he saw – the lifelike motion that was unlike that of an arm controlled by a crewman fussing with a control panel. It moved because Gristlemaw was the ship, with mana circuits running through it just like Apex, controlling every aspect personally.

  Sallus had said this was not something that was normally done. Gristlemaw was the prototype for what she had done with Apex, but the ancient pirate was not a spellcaster himself. He did not have the grasp on the intimacies of magic that a Great Dragon had, and there was only one more gamble Apex had to do. A gamble that Gristlemaw would not have seen the tiny flaw in this system.

  As Apex tumbled again, his ‘belly’ faced the oncoming claw. One door of his cargo bay was open, giving the briefest of glimpses into the dark hold behind it.

  The makeshift contraption mounted inside surged forward, tearing itself apart as it hurled the remaining torpedo out past the bay. A remote pulse signaled it to engage its engines, rocketing the very brief distance toward the ship so near to him, where it impacted with a silent crunch against the armored hull.

  No detonation followed.

  Instead, the complex spell buried inside triggered. Contact allowed it to do what Apex could not do at range, when boosted by the small amount of quintessence within. Mana surged up into the hull, diffusing through the thick plating too quickly to cause any damage, but coursing over and through the circuitry laid within the ship. Circuitry that quickly carried the single command encoded within the spell.

  Just like Apex, Gristlemaw had connected the mana circuitry to most of the ship functions, allowing him to fly the ship on his own… or to use the Etherglide Engine.

  Without any coordinates keyed in, the engine activated, and the Rattling Saber vanished in a burst of rainbow color.

  Quiet in the Bones